Grindr closed its $250 million purchase of Freddie, the PrEP telehealth service, on Monday, Nov. 2, the company announced. Eligible Grindr users in the U.S. and Canada can connect with Freddie now through the Health center in the Grindr app, it said. The Grindr Freddie deal also builds Grindr Health, the company’s medical business, around PrEP access.
Freddie’s PrEP patients can skip the app entirely. When Grindr announced the purchase on Sept. 30, it promised that “participation will be entirely voluntary.” Freddie’s patients “can choose whether or not to use Grindr,” the release said, and Grindr users can pass on Freddie. (No headless torso required for a refill.)
“We are very excited to welcome the Freddie team to Grindr and can’t wait to work together to make HIV prevention care easier for more gay men to access,” Grindr CEO George Arison said in Monday’s announcement. Buying Freddie’s parent company, PurposeMed, gives Grindr “clinical and pharmacy capabilities that would take us at least two years to build ourselves,” he said.
Freddie’s Leadership Stays On to Build Grindr Health
Arison and Freddie co-founder Dr. Husein Moloo told shareholders in a joint letter that Freddie had more than 25,000 active patients at the end of September. “Freddie’s leadership will stay with us to help build Grindr Health,” they wrote.
“We built Freddie to make HIV prevention simple and accessible for everyone who needs it,” Moloo, who co-founded Freddie in Canada in 2020, said in the Sept. 30 announcement. “Today we estimate Freddie prevents a new HIV transmission across the US and Canada every day.”
In June, Freddie announced an official partnership to reach people through Grindr’s platform. “This partnership with Grindr allows us to meet people where they already are,” Corey Sherwood, Freddie’s vice president of marketing, said then.
“No one reaches the Freddie community like Grindr does,” Moloo said when the sale was announced.
How Grindr Users Reach Freddie PrEP Through the Health Center
“Grindr has a direct line to millions of gay men,” Arison said in the September announcement, “and Freddie brings the medical expertise to turn that reach into care.”
That release said Grindr users would be able to see clinicians, get tested and fill PrEP prescriptions through the app. Monday’s release says Grindr will knit Freddie more tightly into the app over time.
About 400,000 Grindr users in the U.S. say on their profiles that they take PrEP, according to the shareholder letter. “We estimate that more than 2 million additional Grindr users in the US should be on PrEP, for both their own health and the health of the men they meet,” Arison and Moloo wrote. Patients “will have the opportunity to pair care with premium app benefits,” the letter said.
Grindr plans to run Freddie alongside Woodwork, its erectile dysfunction and weight-loss service, as part of Grindr Health, Gayety reported in October. “Don’t think of Grindr as a dating product,” Arison told Fast Company. (Tell that to the grid at 1 a.m.)
Grindr’s HIV Data History and the £26 Million UK Settlement
Grindr’s September deal filings list “new privacy risks arising from the integration of PurposeMed’s operations with Grindr” among the deal’s risks. The same list names compliance with HIPAA and with Canadian and U.S. state health privacy laws.
In 2018, Grindr acknowledged sending users’ HIV status and last test dates to Apptimize and Localytics, two firms it paid to analyze app use, NPR reported. It said the data was encrypted and that listing a status was optional. Its security chief told Axios the company would stop.
In September, Grindr agreed to pay £26 million to settle a group claim from about 12,000 UK users, the Guardian reported. They alleged Grindr shared sensitive data with ad companies, in some cases their HIV status, up to early 2020, when Beijing Kunlun Tech owned it. Grindr said the claim concerned “historical data practices before 2020.” It didn’t admit liability.
“While Grindr disputes the allegations, it recognizes and acknowledges the distress and loss of trust expressed by some of its UK users regarding that pre-2020 period,” the company said in a securities filing, The Record reported. Grindr says it keeps HIV status and testing details out of its AI training, Gayety reported Oct. 27.
Grindr Freddie Deal Terms and the Nov. 5 Earnings Call
Grindr paid $190 million in cash and $60 million in stock, according to its closing filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing names Moloo as the representative of PurposeMed’s sellers. They can collect up to $70 million more in cash if the business hits financial targets for 2027.
“I’m incredibly proud of what our team has built, and we’re excited for this next chapter as part of Grindr,” Moloo said in the September announcement.
Grindr reports third-quarter results after the market closes Thursday, Nov. 5, according to a Grindr announcement. Arison plans to stream the 2 p.m. Pacific call on his X and LinkedIn accounts.
